[Speaker 2] (1:04 - 2:32)
Good evening and welcome to the February 28th Select Board meeting. If we could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, we're being recorded everyone.

Okay, first item on the agenda is public comment. Public comment is commentary, which is items that are not on the agenda. If you have public comment, you may raise your hand via Teams or come up to the microphone in the room.

Please state your name, address and precinct. Public comment will be curbed to three minutes, please. Seeing none, moving on to new and old business.

I just would like to note that item three on the agenda, which is the Pine Street item, will be tabled until our next meeting. We will begin with item number one, discussion and vote to approve the sale of a $10 million plus for maturing notes. Patrick is here to do a little presentation for us.

Would you like to take it away?

[Speaker 1] (2:33 - 5:17)
Yes, thanks, Katie. I provided the board with a memo on February 22nd. You all should have got it, summarizing a bond and note sale that we held last week on the 22nd.

We're issuing approximately $4,865,000 in general obligation bonds. The proceeds are to be used in the following ways. They're going to refinance $2.7 million worth of notes that are maturing on March 6th that the board issued last year. And the remaining proceeds are financing various capital projects approved in 2020, 2021, 2023 and special town meeting in 2022. The largest portion of the proceeds are being used for $1,650,000 worth of the land acquisition project, which is the tax exempt portion that bond council allowed us to do. And for the note, the note is being issued in the amount of $12,079,960.

The proceeds are being used largely to temporarily finance costs related to the construction of the new school that's scheduled to complete in the next six months imminently. So that spend is really ramped up on that. So we're temporarily financing that amount in anticipation of MSBA grant funds being received later on after project completion.

We're also using $1.7 million to refinance amounts maturing on March 6th in the same note issue that I alluded to earlier. And the remaining proceeds are being used to finance various capital projects approved by special town meeting of September 21, June of 22, December of 22, and annual town meeting 23. The bidding went well.

We received eight bids on the bonds. The spread on the interest rate was 3.42 to 3.65%. And the winning bidder was Jeffries. No, Roosevelt and Cross won the bids.

Jeffries won the notes. There was five bids received on the notes with a net interest cost spread of 3.22% to 3.29%. The board has to take several votes. There's a consolidated motion on that memo in bold that you can read.

That's what we've done the last few times we've issued that. And then there are several documents that you all need to execute with your signature tonight so that this can close on March 6th. I'll take any questions.

[Speaker 6] (5:19 - 5:21)
Thank you, Patrick. Yep. Any questions?

[Speaker 3] (5:22 - 5:32)
Yeah. Can you just, I guess, just for us or anyone else that's listening, how do you determine what goes into bonds versus notes?

[Speaker 1] (5:33 - 6:19)
So a lot of it is timing. So a lot of what was rolled up in the bonds are projects that have been financed in notes for several years now. And once you refinance a note for the third time, you have to start paying principal versus in the short term when you use a note, you can just make interest payments while you're getting the project off the ground.

So that's part of it. And projects that are completed, we know what the final cost is, you can bond them. So we kind of just look at those types of things.

It's a lot of timing. And I work with a financial advisor at Unibank, and he helps structure these in the most advantageous way that he can help me predict the outcome.

[Speaker 3] (6:19 - 6:35)
And then also within the notes, the big chunk, the 8.7 million, I think you mentioned it, that's kind of like a big surge. But we anticipate getting funds back. Yeah, so we're building authority.

And that's why we're doing a kind of a short term note as opposed to a bond.

[Speaker 1] (6:35 - 6:55)
Exactly. We're going to do a short term note in that amount in anticipation of receiving grant funds so that the final amount we bond will be less. And we'll also know the final cost of the project.

If there's any spending that comes under budget, we can net that out before we bond over the longer term for that project in particular.

[Speaker 3] (7:00 - 7:01)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (7:03 - 7:10)
Any other questions? Do I have a motion?

[Speaker 5] (7:11 - 7:15)
I think we need to actually read this motion to the record.

[Speaker 3] (7:15 - 7:24)
I move that the written votes presented to this meeting in connection with the Council of its bonds and notes be adopted as written and incorporated in the minutes of this meeting in full.

[Speaker 2] (7:24 - 7:29)
Second. All those in favor? Oh, do we have to take a roll vote for this?

Might as well.

[Speaker 5] (7:30 - 7:32)
Peter? Aye.

[Speaker 2] (7:32 - 7:32)
Doug?

[Speaker 5] (7:32 - 7:33)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (7:33 - 7:46)
Mary Ellen? Aye. And I am an aye.

Thank you very much, Patrick. You're welcome. All right.

Second item on the agenda. Discussion and possible vote for Social Club All Alcohol Annual Liquor License Renewals.

[Speaker 5] (7:46 - 7:53)
I'd like to make a motion to extend this, to extend those licenses through March 31, 2024.

[Speaker 2] (7:56 - 7:56)
Do I have a second?

[Speaker 5] (7:57 - 7:57)
Second.

[Speaker 4] (7:59 - 8:00)
Do we have discussion?

[Speaker 2] (8:00 - 8:02)
Shall we have discussion? Sure, we can have discussion.

[Speaker 4] (8:02 - 8:52)
Absolutely. I have no idea why we are going to extend this just for a month. These are three clubs in our community.

My understanding is there is no violations to their liquor license. This just seems, it almost seems punitive when there's no violations whatsoever, and I don't understand why we were supposed to do this in November, and we extended it to now, and now we want to extend it just 30 days, and then what's going to happen in 30 days? Another extension?

I just think that this is a mistake, and that we should extend these licenses for the full year, and get on with it. Unless there's a conversation here about have they, has the Yacht Club or the Snapshot Club or the Italian Club, have they violated anything?

[Speaker 5] (8:54 - 9:12)
Are you asking me, Muriel? No, I believe Town Council sent an email at 5 o'clock this evening on this topic, and so consistent with your past that you don't like to take action on things, we just got an email, and so I'm just, I haven't even read the email on the topic, so I'm just suggesting that we.

[Speaker 4] (9:12 - 9:21)
Well, I have a question. Why is Town Council even involved? This is something that happened in November, and now I'm getting an email from Town Council at 5 o'clock at night?

[Speaker 5] (9:21 - 9:22)
You are, yeah.

[Speaker 4] (9:22 - 10:04)
Well, you know, I think that we should be approving these, we should approve these for one year, for the year that they're supposed to have, so I think that, I think this is terrible, really. These are citizens of Swanscott, they're taxpayers, there's three clubs, there's no violations, I don't know why we're doing this. And as far as getting an email from legal council at 5 o'clock, why didn't we get an email in November from legal council, or December, January, February?

Not 5 o'clock tonight. That's fair. I mean, I just, you know, this is very disappointing, so.

[Speaker 3] (10:06 - 10:26)
Yeah, I mean, based on, I did have a chance to look at the email, and that's why I feel like it's prudent to make sure that we're doing this right. It may be perfectly fine, but based on what I saw, I want to make sure that we do it right, so 30 days. It'd be great if we did it four months ago, totally agree, but.

[Speaker 4] (10:26 - 10:33)
And are these clubs aware of these legal issues? I mean, or these, whatever the issue is.

[Speaker 2] (10:33 - 12:00)
I don't know what the email says, so I would hate to opine and say that there are legal issues. I don't, I can't speak to the fact whether there is or isn't, because I have not read the email, because I, like you, were only here and working until that time, so until I understand the tenor of the email, I don't want to make conjecture about anything that is going on with regards to that, so. I will, we've all been heard on the motion, and I think at this time, we will, I will just say my piece, which is, I think there has to be a commitment at this point in time that we are not going to drag our feet on this matter.

We have dragged them enough. I would like a commitment from staff and from you, Sean, that this is on the next agenda. I know that's David's agenda, but I will talk to David about the importance of it being on our next agenda, because I think this matter has been drawn out, and to Mary Ellen's point, if it's not intended to be punitive, it certainly must feel that way to clubs, so let's just make a decision and move on.

Okay, so the motion I hand is to extend for 30 days. All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? I'm going to abstain. This is just ridiculous.

3-0-2-1. Wonderful. Select board time.

Does anybody have anything for select board time?

[Speaker 5] (12:01 - 12:04)
It's not even on our agenda. Oh, it's not?

[Speaker 2] (12:04 - 12:09)
Well, I, if you will indulge the acting chair, if anybody has select board

[Speaker 3] (12:09 - 13:27)
great time we can one thing I could update on that we have been talking about recently is resiliency because there was a meeting with the climate chief Mary Ellen and I were able to make that the state's climate chief Jenny Armini coordinated this graciously for us Sean was vacation Gino attended and Martha Schmidt also attended from climate action and it was really fascinating she did not bring a big check but she brought a lot of interesting perspective and there's been a lot of kind of behind the scenes you know prepping and thinking through what our next step should be on this issue you know I know we talked about potentially bringing this issue back in March and so there's work trying to think through you know what the right next steps on this are so with Margie we've been working through kind of processing this through a few different committees to get perspective on that so over the next you know month we can come back and have some kind of educated broader perspective on next steps

[Speaker 2] (13:27 - 13:42)
all right everybody's good motion to adjourn a second second all those in favor aye so much Wow